Ah, the Fourth of July. A Day when we celebrate this great country and the great heroes it has seen. How do we celebrate? With exploding fire.
We had a wonderful barbecue at a friend's house and drove home just after sundown to but the baby to bed. Five minutes from home, a beautiful display of fireworks went off in perfect view. Drek pulled the car over and we watched the celebration. It was beautiful.
At the conclusion of the finale we started the car and pulled back onto the main road. Suddenly we were surrounded by hundreds of pedestrians and lots and lots of cars. Instant traffic jam! We quickly jumped into the left had turn lane, deciding it was the quickest way out of the mess.
From the moment we got into the turn lane all traffic stopped moving. Not even the lanes going straight moved, but the baffling part was that the left turn lane wasn't moving. There were breaks in oncoming traffic, there were breaks in the masses of pedestrians crossing the street, but the car in the front of line did not even attempt to turn.
We waited. And waited. And theorized on why we weren't moving. Did the car break down? Was he dead drunk? Could he not see in the dark? Did he think now was a good time to take a nap?
We discussed one of us jumping out and directing traffic. I decided that while I was impatient enough, I was not brave enough. Other cars in line honked their horn, trying to get the front car to move. We honked our horn. Still, the front car didn't budge. At last I opened the door and jumped out. I had a much better view of the car at the front of the line, but I didn't want to leave my car, I just reported back to Drek.
"Go tell the car in front to move." Drek told me. But again, I wasn't brave enough.
A guy walk passed me. "I'll go see what's up." He informed me. He walked up to the front window of the car and talked for less than ten seconds. He then jumped into the middle of the road and directed traffic. He got our whole turn lane out of there in less than thirty seconds.
That guy is my American Hero.
Seriously, that guy was beyond awesome. That was such a perfectly awesome thing to do.
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